Help! 800cal/day = good diet or ED? "Eat less, do more&

Help! 800cal/day = good diet or ED? "Eat less, do more" not working?
VLCD trap?

I am about to go insane. After two years of deep dedication and going it alone with VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) calorie restriction, I need some input about what is it I am obviously doing wrong. I am doing everything "right" to the most extreme possible and yet am making no progress on any front for almost a year - no fat loss, no lean mass muscle gain, no increased athletic prowess, no pants feeling looser, no increase in bicep size. Nothing! The anguish and frustration level has hit an extreme pitch. I cannot be the only "hard loser" person in the country with such a bizarre extreme metabolism that seemingly breaks the laws of body mechanics as blindly spouted by every nutritionist or obesity expert I've ever read (and come to doubt).
"Eat least, exercise most" should do something in a calorie=calorie world! I want to understand what is happening within my body from a scientific standpoint. I have 20 questions at the end that I need help with. This is a long rant and diet travelogue, but I hope I am not alone in my weird diet trial experiences, where others can offer advice or help. I've reached the limit of my own knowledge and powers and self-drive. In short, I am momentarily frustrated to hell.

In a nutshell - according to everyone I've had the nerve to share my dilemma with - they say I am too fat because I eat too little and workout too much!! That my healthy calorie restrictive eating over the years has done nothing more than to train my body to run slower and slower on fewer and fewer calories. It really messes with the head!
When "Eat less, exercise more" is what the Surgeon General and nutritionists all say over and over again. How can it not work?

I know that clinically most people think that they are unique and different and a special case cursed with bad metabolism. My take was no whining, everyone's body runs differently, find your own personal magic sweet spot. However I've had enough people become concerned and worse seemingly alarmist about my eating over the past year that I feel I need to seek advice and feedback as a sanity check. Or at least see if I am not alone in some bizarro world that works backwards from normal - that I am not alone in how my body seemingly "just runs on air" as my doctor loves reducing it to in a ridiculing manner. Any pointers to good science-based nutritionists local to Boston would also be appreciated. My small town doctor has been a complete dead end.

I know I'll get wildly differing advice from bodybuilders versus cyclists versus nutritionists versus dieters, but am curious to get the feedback from each. I'd like to post this in each forum to get the differing advice and have better hopes of reaching someone who may have experience in this madness of when VLCD doesn't work (hope it won't be seen as spam). Most advice conflicts, yet experimenting with each has not revealed the answer for my current body chemistry and/or genetics.

I know my situation flies in the face of everything cited within one-size-fits-all current weight loss beliefs (calorie=calorie, no such thing as starvation mode, eat less + exercise more, fat people eat more than skinny, fat people eat McD & junk food, etc). I know emotional eating and binge/purge eating is an enormous real problem and accounts for large part or even perhaps 99% of obesity in the general population. But this is not my case. My situation may be rare because I cannot find any good information about it. My own doctor doesn't believe my data, however I don't blame him since clinically most fat people under-report what they eat. The local obesity clinic I visited on my own told me "You're doing way more exercise than we could ever hope for in our patients here, we just try to get them to just walk for ten minutes per day. Sorry, you're on your own."
Despite the raging nation-wide obesity epidemic, I was left feeling I had to figure it out for myself.

Losing weight, while always a life-long battle, eventually became my number one life priority. I did on a ton of research online wading through contradictory theories. Thinking everyone is an experiment of one, I decided to figure out a complex black box DUT (my body) where I can only monitor the inputs (food) and output (body results). I ended up creating my own spreadsheet of calories in versus exercise calories out versus body results (so upset that my own doctor indirectly accused me of lying). I have recently lost faith in nutritionists, even though I followed their dictates for decades. Often they seemed to only spout mantra versus real science, seeing what they did to
Atkins for decades with never once challenging their assumptions and performing any scientific studies to back their perhaps honestly felt but merely taken-on-faith notions. The more of their advice I'd follow, the seemingly worse off I became (more later). But I'm hoping that perhaps some diet war veteran or sports nutritionist or physical trainer here might have some real-life experience with subjects overcoming my VLCD predicament and can offer me and others like me advice.

I'm 5' 8" and now in my late thirties. I was a former competitive cyclist where my post-college race weight throughout the ages of 16-24 was 120lbs for a BMI of 18.5 (healthy weight, especially for a cyclist). I had a 28" waist that was size small in small-running for-Americans Euro cycling clothing. Twelve years later (two years ago) you would have never guessed that might ever have been the case.
After spending four years exclusively focused on my career and eating just one meal a day at dinner (Weight Watcher "a calorie = a calorie to be saved or spent" concept) with only moderate workouts, I reached the horrendous state of becoming double my college weight - 240lbs for
BMI 36.5 (obese) with a 40+" waist. At 120lbs over my ideal weight, I was morbidly obese. I have extreme will power and through my own VLCD efforts I lost 70lbs over the period of a year. However I am presently and seemingly permanently stuck at the half-way mark around 175 lbs for a BMI of 27 (overweight) for the past whole year. My Tanita scale in standard mode each morning reports that I have 26% body fat. "Over fat." Very fat. I cannot seem to get off this plateau, despite what other people consider extreme exercise and extreme diet (which I somewhat disagree with). I have 55 lbs of excess unhealthy fat remaining mostly in a visible spare tire ring around my entire abdomen where I can pinch over three inches rather than just one. Very unhealthy. A coming heart attack you can see in the mirror.

My modest goal is not to become a Men's Health cover super model with perfect washboard abs better than anyone else in my cycling peer group, but to simply have a non-tire-roll flat stomach and to be a healthy BMI (knowing how each BMI point over 25 puts you at 7% increased risk for cancers, etc). I'd also like to be a good race weight for cycling, since my present weight REALLY slows me down. On group ride hill climbs I embarrassingly get dropped, despite hill climbing being my former specialty and where I excelled and took extreme joy in. Loved those days and sprightly riding style. You cannot be a fat hill climber since you pay the gravity penalty for being heavy. You cannot be fat and socialize in many of my personal social circles. For example, just look at the way the cycling community ridicules Jan "eats too many of his mama's cakes" Ullrich as he gains weight every winter off-season. Being the fattest dude in the ski house hot tub of accomplished athletic friends is no joy either.
For years I put off enjoying so many things in life "until I lost the weight" like joining friends on group dinners, at the ski house, or even going to the beach. Life as a fat recluse (result of "until I lose weight, do gym now, friends later" approach) is worse than any food tastes. Furthermore being a gym instructor (presumed I should know better?) with an ever-enduring pot belly is not a good career move or any motivational help to my students. Thin is good and attractive and healthy. "Everyone can get there, it's just a very simple matter of using a little discipline and self control." Being over-fat implies I have neither.

I was always a slightly overweight child but ate the typical meat and potato meals most families did (which are deemed unhealthy nowadays).
Meals which included vegetables but always in their least healthy forms. Creamed spinach, broccoli with cheese, baked cauliflower covered in buttered bread crumbs, etc. In high school I picked up cycling, believed I knew nutrition better than my 'stupid' old-world
European parents, and started changing my eating habits to always fall in line with the very best American nutritional advice of the day.
Those experts knew best.

Others could perhaps better detail the nutritional advice changes that happened since the 80's, but for me it started with messages about red meat being horribly bad for you. So I cut out all red meat, which started the pattern of cutting out the "evil bad" foods from my WOE in order to leave only the good healthy ones. Then fats were deemed bad.
I cut out all dairy. Milk and cheese and ice cream were not good healthy foods to eat, so I didn't. If I craved ice cream on a hot summer's day, I 'smartly' chose sugary fat-free sherbet instead. Even frozen yoghurt had too much fat. Then over the years vegetarian friends and more nutritional advice started painting all meat as bad - ham has fat, pork has fat, veal has fat, "be careful - even chicken has fat." I was doing a lot of stir-fries then. I cut out all meat (fat), and ate mostly vegetables since vegetarians "live longer." The constant nutritionist message was Americans get way too much protein and eat way too much meat. The only safe non-veggie food to make a stir fry with was expensive fat-free shrimp - so in college mine were mostly veggies only. Then eggs had fat, cut them. Then fish like salmon had fat. Cut out all fish except tuna. Tried to make tuna salad using rice wine vinegar instead of mayo, just wasn't the same and gave me acid stomach. Skipped that.

Then nutritionists said "It's not the pound of pasta that makes you fat but the dollop of tomato sauce on top of it" (and I just read that old backwards advice on the web yesterday - still!). Makes you fat presumably from the olive oil. More fat. I cut out olive oil, which always did leave an evil fat film of oil on those perfect holy pure vegetables anyway, so no more stir-frys. I tried sautéing my vegetables in chicken stock, which as a gourmet cook tasted too much like simply steaming them that it was pointless. Same results as simply microwaving them, which has even fewer calories. I tried baking fat-free cakes replacing butter with fat-free apple sauce. No good results, no joy. If I didn't enjoy it, why waste the calories, so I just 'smartly' cut out each bad food from my WOE.

In the end I was down to almost entirely eating fat-free naked white
"good" foods as endorsed by nutritionists and the carboholic
"Pop-Tarts get our health food seal" AHA : a little fat-free microwaved vegetables with tons of fat-free white potatoes and fat-free white rice and fat-free white bread and fat-free white pasta and fat-free white bananas; white, white, white. "Watch that tomato sauce - it has fat!" After all, like nutritionists said, "you never see any fat Asians - they eat fat-free white rice, not meat."
Snackwell's modern fat-free processed food creations were clearly better than anything I ever could create myself at home since I could never make my home dishes 100% fat-free like them. American nutritionists know best.

And yet at first, by changing my WOE away from my normal childhood foods, I did manage to lose a lot of that excess childhood weight to reach 120 lbs throughout my high school and college years. I started winning or placing well in almost all my cycling events and moved up the ranks. At my peak in my early 20's I had 3.4% body fat. And incredibly, I was irritated at the time because my triathlete roommate, who had a classic Men's Health body and came to get measured with me, rang in at 2.8%, beating me. I was consuming all carbohydrates and no proteins- pasta & rice & no meat (classic cyclist food). I looked like Tyler "we train like dogs and eat like squirrels"
Hamilton in the Tour de France (classic cyclist body type), a look that seems too anorexic in the upper body to me today. I thought I had turned the corner, that I had given myself a new trim athletic body type. Forever. For life. Sure I still had to watch calories, had cut a lot of normal regular foods out of my life, but I had made it. "You cannot eat normal, if you want a body that looks better than normal," which in later years I'd find is the bodybuilder's motto.

The reality of the situation was this - I was riding 600-700 miles a week, which is about 30-35 hours per week in the saddle. A full-time job spent working out. Even bodies most resilient to fat loss would lose doing that much elite race-level activity each week all season long. No matter how much they ate. No matter what they ate. And yet every winter cycling off-season since high school I'd gain a bunch of weight as the miles dropped off, only to have to take it all back off in spring during on-season. College 10 lb winter swings became 20, then 30, then 40, then 50. It all became part of my standard yearly fare.

Obviously I couldn't keep those on-season training hours up as my jobs became more responsible. The free hours I could ride kept being reduced and weight kept increasingly being an issue. The end of the trend saw me doing minimal training most of the year but cramming "a year's worth of training" during my two-week summer vacation. Every day for two weeks I'd get up at 5AM and ride a double metric century, get back, run 5 miles around a track, and then mountain bike several miles out to my favorite beach, walking a good mile each way in sand to get there, bringing only water never food. Wake up next day and repeat. For two weeks. However I would lose the 20-40lbs I had gained over winter by the end of summer.

But here's the critical point. I used to do those 130-mile ride days eating nothing more than a pint of cherries at the farm stand conveniently at the half-way mark. That's it. For all day. Every day for two weeks. To fuel all that activity. According to all that should not be possible. I assumed the energy had to be coming from fat loss.
As long as I lost some fat, I never felt the need to check the calories in versus out equations.

However I'd lose less and less fat every year.

Even at my thinnest I have always had a very efficient metabolism. At
3.4% body fat I would annoy my fellow riders because I never had to eat during even long races (feared upsetting my stomach anyway) and most distressing to them never had to carry much water with me. At
100-mile races on 100+ degree days, it was pointed out that I would only have a single drop of sweat on my forehead when everyone else had already consumed their entire water bottles, whereas mine remained untouched. They called me "The Camel." In the military I notoriously survived two-weeks of no-sleep stressful 24/7 combat leadership training eating nothing more than a single box of fat-free crackers. I won't bore you with the other examples. I just came to accept that my body needed a lot less to run on than everyone else's did. But none of this should be possible according to nutritionists - a calorie is a calorie and the human body is a linear device. Nutritionists say
"There are no obese anorexics." Doctors say strap someone to a hospital bed and they can make them lose weight. What, even without
HOURS of working out each day? Hah! Good luck - I'd win that bet. If I was ever stranded on a deserted island I'd be one lucky man, but in today's modern social environment that revolves around social eating, it makes me an unhealthy and unhappy reclusive fat man unable to go to dinner with coworkers or friends. "No thanks, I'm eating my peach for lunch again instead."

An alert and healthy person is supposed to monitor his activity levels, fat levels, and curb his diet accordingly. So over the years of increasing career and decreasing workouts, I cut out more and more food. Getting more and more healthy in my choices but eating less and less calories yet getting fatter and fatter. I got to the point of feeling that I could only really ever eat something, say like a dinner with pasta, if I had worked out that day (American "food = fuel" vs.
European "Food = Joy of Life".

Yet it was never enough. My cutting back couldn't keep up with my ever-expanding waistline. It was life in bizarro world. It seemed like the more I cut back, the fatter I got. This is not possible in a
"calorie = calorie" world. Right?

So there I end up at 240lbs - obese. Did I get there by eating Oreos and ice cream and Big Macs the way one would imagine someone getting so big? No. I got there via eating just one 'healthy' meal a day. I was still operating under the "fat = evil" mindset, one which is still deeply entrenched within me today. Fat-free bread or fruit (esp.
cyclist favorite high-carb bananas) or high-carb veggies (especially corn and peas) or Snackwells or pasta or rice, where rare splurge take-out dinners were no cheese veggie pizza or shrimp stir-fry with veggies and rice in a fat-free brown soy sauce. All carb-loaded, all
AHA and nutritionist endorsed fat-free foods. "Being good." I also eliminated all the fun and unnecessary calories from my diet. Drank (and still drink) nothing but water since I never quite bought the safety of nutra-sweet. Others around me lose bunches of pounds by just using one or two of my daily regimen principles, like switching their shocking liters of Coke per day to water. Happens all the time to my cohorts. But no, never me.

At 240 lbs, clearly my years of moderate efforts were not enough. I needed an all out offensive to counter my apparent 'weak' eating discipline. It was time to get really serious. I was tired of putting off everything in my life "until after I lost weight". I was too ashamed to ever take my shirt off in public or join friends in a hot tub or even shower at the gym (still barely OK with that now). I was too ashamed to ever go to the beach where other people might be (always kayaked miles out to be alone where no else would ever go).
Having a good runner friend from cycling days semi-joke that I was too big to be seen on his private beach, having "grotesquely just let yourself GO like that", further entrenched my view. And I agreed, "who wants to see all that unsightly shameful fat anyway?" Athletes can be rough but at the same time it was also true. I had lost enough friends and enough quality of life to make losing body fat my number one goal ahead of career goals or anything else. My wife is naturally skinny, sees working out as silly, sweating as gross, never exercises even in a whole week, eats way more than I do, yet is in perfect trim shape.
Yet she never minded me being out of shape. A wonderfully romantic gesture but not good in terms of being an enabler. Does the fact that a fat man has to eat less than a skinny woman say anything?

In my research I found lots of studies which detail the success of
VLCD diets on the obese (like me). At around 600 cal/day they would lose 3-5 lbs/wk. I also read where exercise is a natural appetite suppressant, which is true for me where it stems cravings late at night if I come off the indoor bike trainer having been totally winded in sprints. I don't feel like eating for hours afterwards. VLCD reports suggested medical supervision, but my doc consistently issued the stern commanding verdict of "eat less, exercise more" and that seemed to match. It is also the Surgeon General's oft-repeated advice.
I knew lean muscle mass increases your metabolism, but feared VLCD eating muscle. I then saw studies where VCLD was not catabolic if the subject used resistance weight training. Other studies say basal metabolism at worst only drops by 30%-40% even in total-fasting starvation trials, where typically it's only on the order of 5%-10%.
This matched nutritionists and doctors saying "there is no such thing as starvation mode slowing down metabolism, it's just an excuse fat people use to eat too much."

Nutritionist websites one after the other had daily intake calculators which said even on my most modest exercise day, I should be eating well over 3K calories per day! Absolutely Insane!! No one would ever be fat if they could ever eat that much food! Each day! Every day of the year! 3000 calories is 72 of my medium peaches or 43 of my one-pound boxes of frozen spinach or 20 of my cans of tuna fish!! Or even eating the most evil calorie-dense foods that's about TWELVE servings of incredibly rich Ben & Jerry's ice cream or SIX McDonald's
Big Macs. What's 3K calories in the worst meal you could ever eat - A
Big Mac meal with super-size fries and large chocolate thick shake has
1495 calories, you could eat TWO, every day, for the rest of your life and never get fat, in the supposed nutritionist "a calorie is a calorie" world. Bullshit!! No one eats that much! Even a person with the worst diet possible doesn't eat the equivalent of a McD super meal
TWICE a day, EVERY day of the year? Are Fitday and nutritionists joking!?!

Yet I still believed in nutritionist's "body is linear" model and oft-repeated "it's simply calories in versus calories out." And so I strove to maximize both sides of the linear equation - exercise most, eat least. I'd eat a maximum 200 calories per day, no eating after 3PM where unused calories could turn to fat, and exercise at least 5 hours per night to keep hunger away and muscles from being consumed rather than ample body fat. Eating next to nothing meant I'd lose those promised 2K-3K basal metabolism calories each day. Almost a pound of fat per day. Perfect. I have an iron will, I was determined, I have so far been free of ailments or medications, and I was free to be left alone to my own devices with all my non-work free time all to myself.
No problem, away we go...

Long story short, I lasted in this regimen every day for over four long dreary months! However I only lost 1 lb/wk - which in literature other people can do by simply dropping 500 calories from their normal
2K+ calorie daily intake. I never got the promised VLCD 3-5 lb/wk loss nor the 3K calorie basal metabolism pound of fat per day. "Oh well, suppose my body is just that efficient again I guess. At least it's better than nothing."

In practice I would eat a bag of microwaved frozen vegetables each day at lunch - often a 70 cal 1 lb box of spinach, other days corn-pea-carrot medley mix for triple that (200 cal, since I didn't fear carbs yet), or a box of broccoli somewhere in between. That's all
I would eat all day. ("Make your biggest meal lunch". I felt good reading on the back of the box that this was 3-4 servings of vegetables, which sounded like a lot. If I was truly really hungry,
I'd crave another serving of watery spinach - "No? Don't want it?
Well, you're not really hungry then are you." After work I'd hit the gym for 5 hours. 2 hours weight training and three hours of aerobics.
Then I'd come home unshowered to perform bike trainer riding for 30-60 mins. That was the absolutely hardest part of all. Sitting in the car inside my garage, completely drained and spent and old-sweat cold after the five hours at the gym, trying on very low energy to sum up enough strength and motivation to get onto the bike after 5 hours at the gym. I was never very hungry, and also never did get chills in bed at night like anorexics do. The weight loss was very slow, life became very dull and very dreary and very devoid of joy and somewhat lonely without ever one spare moment to be social (from bed to work to gym to bed; repeat), but at least I was getting somewhere in terms of fat loss, even if only a slow 1 lb/wk despite the extreme efforts. As long as I was losing I was fine.

The strange phenomenon was what appears to be the set point theory. I was eating the same number of calories and exercising the same every day. Yet I would go weeks without seeing ANY change on the scale or
Tanita BIA body fat reading (normal fluctuations but flat trend). Then suddenly over two days I would immediately lose 10 pounds and drop body fat. I would go nuts, trying to figure out what I happened to do any differently over those previous two days. But there never was any difference. Over the 70 lbs I lost, this phenomenon happened to me seven times. Weeks of no movement on the scale, then over two days I'd drop a sudden TEN more pounds. As if the body was defending its set point for weeks, finally gave it up, and set a new one 10 lbs less, defending that one for weeks, until it gave that one up. I expected a constant linear line fat loss, but got this bizarre 10lb X 7 times step function instead. Always repeatable, and thus some buried truth of some kind I cannot fathom (if not set point theory).

Then after more than four months of success (slow losses but something), I hit the panic button. In my continuing research I read about how so many people died in the 1970's from the early VLCD liquid diets. One issue was poor protein - oops, I was getting some in the box of spinach, but not that much. However the real scare was lack of potassium where patients died from heart arrhythmias. I thought my multi-vitamin covered me. Checked them - only 2% RDA!! Go to CVS, the separate potassium supplement was also only 2% RDA. What gives? I was worried enough to see my doctor. He response was same as before - you're on your own, you're fat and don't look anorexic, along with many mocking side glances over his glasses when I told him of my regimen -"You should be dead right now on my floor - running on air like that!" But no help. The blood work I insisted on showed lower-than-average levels of everything, from thyroid hormone to testosterone and other components I can't remember, but none of them ever low enough for any HMO specialist to be concerned over and suggest correcting. My doc said "Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it, because nothing looks bad from what I can see." My heart rate is and was very low, 35-42 bpm, "like an athlete" even though I hadn't raced for years (when it used to be low to but had reason to be from racing). Yet I was working out. Maybe? But I also read now that low heart rate is commonly a side effect of CRAN (Calorie Restriction with
Adequate Nutrition). I'm not sure I qualified for the AN in CRAN.

I wonder if any one else ever experiences this... During this regimen
I could often go three fasting days without eating anything at all. It was simply no problem. I continued my workouts yet I NEVER felt hungry. I never remembered to eat. If I wasn't truly hungry (ie, veggies vs fun), I simply didn't eat. A miracle. Then again and again, after an always repeatable and distinct three day threshold mark, after days on a no-hunger high I would suddenly become "bump into walls" dizzy and have the strong craving to eat something to stem the dizziness. Below three days, limited or even no eating was fine. This should not happen in a linear "calorie=calorie" world.

Still today I am rarely ever hungry - EXCEPT the very minute I ever have anything high-carb and 'tasty' to eat (like at 'normal food' wknd splurge dinner out with friends). It's as if the hunger flood gates open. I become extremely hungry! And I remember my mother always saying this as well - "I wasn't hungry at all - until the very moment
I ate something. And now I'm starved!" The simple trick to avoid hunger pangs seemed to be to just not eat anything at all. Anyone else ever experience this? Others seem to get hungry on their own, eat something, then get full and stop. It seems to work in reverse for me.

The only other time I experience strong hunger even today is when I have alcohol. Give me two glasses of red wine - and then look out! I turn into a ravenous beast. It is the only time I can eat entire 'normal' meals like everyone else. Cheeses, meats, fats, carbs - especially breads and desserts - carbohydrates to the extreme (well, for me, not an average person). And it never ends. After dinner with friends I am ready to go out right away to have another whole second dinner. Not that I ever do of course, but I could and feel really driven to. So much for listening to your body. My shocked alarmist friends say it's as if I have a broken hunger mechanism. I never get hungry, until AFTER I eat something, but then never feel that sensation of being full even after having eaten. I do experience being full after Thanksgiving Day gorging, but rarely otherwise. Either alcohol loosens up my tight mental control of "food= fuel only" calorie restriction where the body rushes in on the moment of weakness to capitalize on the chance to gorge food, or it stimulates the hunger mechanism to such an extreme where both the alcohol and carbs combine to hit an irrepressible harmonic, or both apply together. Wine is my number one downfall and enemy and unfortunately one of the things along with the often co-existing dinner with friends that gives me some "live life a little" European joy in life. Tricky business!

Midway through the regimen, several trim athletic co-workers began heaping abuse on me for eating only vegetables at lunch while they ate their 'normal' mayonnaise-dripping-down fatty meat and carboholic
Wonder bread sandwiches (often Philly cheese steak subs). They began to incessantly pressure me to moderate my intake ("eat some greasy cheeseburgers like us normal guys, dude". Between that and the potassium scare, I decided to moderate my diet again.

Around the same time, my wife had given me the Atkins book. I have to plead guilty to not having been open to scientific method myself, thinking like nutritionists that I knew everything already better. I too dismissed even investigating his plan because after all the years of buying into the "fat is evil" nutritional mantra, I was already smarter than those idiots who followed what the media told me was the
"eat all the cheese and bacon you want diet." Lunacy. But my wife said
"there was an example in there where Atkins writes about one of his patients that sounds just like you - she only gets hungry AFTER she eats carbohydrates, never before" Intrigued, I read the book - expecting only to have fun by laughing at it.

Many of Atkin's anecdotes rang true of my own experience. I tried
Atkins. But in a very low-fat healthy-fat version (my own precursor to
South Beach). It did change me. I now do look upon all rice and oatmeal and potatoes and breads and pastas and grains and beans and all processed foods comprising my old cycling staples as nutritionally empty candy calories. I shop the meat and produce aisles exclusively, skipping any grain or sugar product. I credit Atkins for getting me to no longer completely fear fats so much as the fat-free nutritionists had me believe for years. I added almonds and salmon and chicken breast and turkey breast back into my WOE, even if sparingly since deep down I still do fear their fats and more importantly their calorie density. I'd measure a 1 oz serving of almonds into a cup to avoid the all-too-easy eating of handfuls from the bag. It was amazing how something like seven almonds would satisfy me for hours. And what a taste joy. I also credit Atkins for getting me to make far better vegetable choices - spinach and broccoli have so much more nutritional value than my previous empty corn and peas. Berries are far better choices than my previous empty bananas and apples. Etc.

Yet, hopes dashed, Atkins made no difference in my overall fat loss.
Caving to advice and pressure from friends, I then spent all last year experimenting with various methods of "moderation" (aka eating more)
from their screaming at me to eat more than VLCD. I tried eating more protein within the half-hour window after my post-workout weight lifting, despite it being night. No difference in fat loss, only minor muscle gain. Experimented with eating carbs before workouts to fuel them better - no change. No better sprints either. Crap. Hopes dashed repeatedly.

I frequently can spend hours working out with never eating. After coming back from a fast lunch group ride, someone will mention how hungry they are after such a hard ride. Not the slightest bit hungry myself, I'd have to think, shocked to realize that I hadn't eaten...
since breakfast the day before - before even yesterday's group ride.
Last summer this happened frequently. I'd just forget to eat. And yet am fat. What's going on here?

The following revealing anecdote is a case study which underscores my situation versus a 'normal' person. Over summer I routinely spent all day kayaking off-shore for hours without ever eating or drinking. One day I kayaked with a chiseled trim friend for a simple easy 30-minute paddle out to a nearby island for lunch (a blow-off non-workout day for me, being social, requiring social eating yet again). We were only
15 minutes out - a joke - but in the harbor's dangerous high traffic lane with an ocean oil tanker coming straight for us - when he starts shaking and unpacks his lunch right then and there in the kayak saying
"I have to eat lunch RIGHT now." "You can't wait 15 minutes?" In a panic he responds "No, I have to eat right now!!" After many tense moments of the tanker closing in, I finally convinced him to paddle out of the way of danger and to eat on the island (where still shaking he ripped into his lunch like a starvation camp victim). But man, I could have paddled all day without ever eating myself (as I frequently did). His metabolism was so hot and high and in such high gear that he had to eat right there and then, shaking, oil tanker looming over his head or not. I have never experienced that, not even on my 130-mile rides on cherries. How do I get his fast inefficient metabolism and junk my efficient one? He had even eaten breakfast beforehand! He gets hungry and needs to eat every three hours, whereas I only get hungry every three days? It's as if we're completely different animals.

Every group has differing advice. Cyclists tell you one thing, bodybuilders another, nutritionists another, dieters something else.
Yet everyone feels they have the god-given right to pick apart your lunch and what you have to eat. Not just me but everyone, coworkers get literally kissing distance away from other coworker's faces to stick their noses into the coworker's private lunch bowl and make comments about their food, whether too ethnic or too healthy or too gross or too weird or too boring. Hello, it's not your food, you don't have to eat it, so shut up about it. Amazing. My microwaved vegetables also get big reactions from people. Over the years I've given up on the 'normal' food combinations everyone else eats - Meat with empty rice, turkey breast sandwich with empty bread, fatty carby milk with empty cereal, red ragout sauce on empty pasta, salad with empty fatty dressing. When usually it's only one of the combo that provides any worthwhile value. Keep the turkey and salad, ditch the bread and dressing. I tend to eat only the base ingredient, ie, tuna from the can versus making it tastier and less healthy by making tuna salad sandwiches with mayo and bread. I get tired of and full from the boring can faster than tasty tuna sandwiches. Food is fuel, not joy of life.

Every group has different standards. Everyone tells runners they're too skinny, cyclists like big quads but worry about any upper body mass at all, bodybuilders fear all cardio as muscle stripping, wine and dinner club members think they aren't fat because everyone else in their circle is - "they're all normal." Bodybuilders tell you to eat all protein. Runners tell you to eat all carbs. Nutritionists say avoid all fats. Atkins says avoid all carbs. What the hell works? So far nothing but VLCD.

I probably should detail my various trails. On VLCD for four months last winter my day was :

Keep in mind that the charts are not accurate. Athletes will have a high BMI by that chart even though they are healthier than many who score a low BMI.

How is your fat % being calculated? Scale or calipers?

Meghan & the Zoo Crew
Equine and Pet Photography http://www.zoocrewphoto.com

Try to focus on the big compound movements. Compound means you are using more than one muscle for a lift. You get much more bang for your buck, takes less time, and is less draining. And believe me - you WILL progress. Try squats, dl's, benchpress, etc.

That's what I fear. If it wasn't such a frustrating place to be I would joke that I should put my 'training' to use for some Survivor show. I am amazed how much I can perform athletically on such low calories WITHOUT LOSING BODY FAT. I don't understand where this energy is coming from. While I can't sprint with the very fastest riders in the field, I can hold my own to pace them and sit in on their pace line (at least 70% their work at worst), and even re-catch them when they drop this fat bastard on the hills. Literature suggests I should be some gelatinous mess with no energy more than to sit rocking on the floor chanting meditation mantra.

OK, the organ argument scares the hell out of me, as I have said. Just how does this work? So even with 96 days worth of free calories to burn in my hideous 26% body fat state, the body instead decides to burn heart muscle. This doesn't ring true from an evolutionary standpoint. Wouldn't heart muscle be the LAST calories to be cannibalized. Sure, Karen Carpenter died from her heart muscle being eaten - but just LOOK at her - it's obvious from her anorexic state that there was nothing but skin and bone left to her, where heart muscle was the last resort.

Do you really think a fat person like me has to worry about organs?
Which ones and why?

When I do eat a "big" (ie, for me) meal where I combine forbidden carbs with protein, I experience a heart pounding and head rush that keeps me up at night. Combined with a tightness of the chest, the passing thought is about heart issues. Or are both conditions (tightness and heart pounding) caused by that day's lifting or from soreness lifting two days ago or from that night's roller sprints or from eating "too much" carbs?

I really don't suspect heart issues (stress tested years ago) but it'd be nice to put this issue to bed in my mind, so I don't stay up at night waiting for a heart attack, where the tightness is mostly likely from the chest exercises.

And in fact that's exactly what happened the last four times I tried to follow this advice. I steadily gained 10lbs in two weeks, four times in a row, at the same exact rate! Reproducible.

The hardship here is that riding season is only months away. If I show up as you suggest, another 20lbs heavier over the 55lbs heavier I already am, my season is shot. You need to be able to stay with the pack in order to sprint with them. Hanging back and declaring that year a "building year" is what hurt me past years - you end up riding
LSD alone instead of sprinting up hills with the group.

My middle ground is to FORCE myself to eat even more protein where I finally will get up to the 1g/lb level (170g or 680 calories). The cyclists want me to consume carbs to fuel my workouts, but I probably should not.

If I can eat 170g protein and keep daily calories to double now (1600 cal/day, boy that's a lot) - would this be enough for me to GAIN lean mass while losing body fat? To get higher metabolism and a cut lean muscled look?

I don't want to look like a heavy bulging over-sized Hulk power lifter, but a "cut" bodybuilder with defined muscles and limited body fat (not too much excess weight). Not as anorexic as classic cyclists look with no upper body muscle mass at all, but closer to a triathlete who has maintained some of his upper body muscle mass, where cycling isn't a total joke (like it is now). An elephant on two wheels.

Is it possible to do on 1600 cal/day? Or do I have to do the Bill
Philips bulking phase followed by a cutting phase every two weeks in order to do this?

If I had this body once, why does it seem so impossible to get back to?

Weight: 240lb max, 175lb current, 120-140lb goal
Waist: 40+" max, 34" current, 28-30" goal
BF%: 33% max, 26% current, 3-9% goal (3% cycling/ 9% triathlete)
LBS of fat: 80lbs max, 46lbs current, 4-14lb goal

Really WISH it were all in my head. Instead a 26% body fat is a hard to ignore indicator, no? I can pinch three inches of gross unhealthy flab which pulls me backwards on cycling hill climbs.

I've had a piece of paper taped to the wall beside my tracked daily morning body fat measurement and weight in. For my 5'8" height it lists the ranges something like (from memory):
BMI |18.5 24.9 |25.0 29.9 |30.0
BF% |3% 15% |15% 25% |25%
LBS |120 165 |165 198 |198

For all my extremely strict and diligent 'perfect' 800 cal/day CRAN
WOE, I still cannot break into the GOOD or healthy range. The only time I saw movement was on 200 cal/day over four months, which also coincided with bouts of dizziness and poor mental performance being in a "fasting high" haze. Afterwards, a year of "moderation" efforts of eating up to 800 cal/day has left me on this plateau which my body seems to have reached some sort of happy stasis point at.

Male cyclists tend to be on the bottom end of this "good" range.

So weight-wise it puts me in the OVERWEIGHT category but by body fat it puts me into the OBESE category still. Extremely frustrating.

fitday is surprisingly easy to use and very informative, with some limitations. While I won't use it on a continuous basis, I used it for a week and the results were very telling. Turns out that I was getting almost 50% of calories from fat!!

It seems reading comprehension is a lost art, or I write poorly. The nachos I can see getting wrong (that maybe I'd ever dare to eat carb triangles covered in greasy cheese fats), but somehow getting "fried chicken" out of my posts which mentions MB roasted chicken breast implies you are mapping your own experiences over those of others.

For the record, I haven't eaten fried chicken for about a decade.
About the nachos - that's indeed the very issue, that I won't eat the common nachos with my friends. That wasn't clear? I'll sometimes have a lite beer or wine instead of my usual bottled water with them, but I don't eat carbs in general and junk foods in particular.

We've gone the gamut here of me being suspected of having OCD (where
I'd think one would compulsively write down everything) to being a common-sense-less oaf who doesn't know portion sizes. I've kept track of my intake with S/W even more accurate that Fitday long enough to know my daily calorie intake. Eating the same general selections of whole foods makes this easy. Believe me I know what a 4oz piece of chicken versus salmon or a 6oz can of tuna looks like and it's nutritional information. CRAN S/W is quite good.

A binge? So you're saying this BM "healthier than normal" meal available commercially of a quarter chicken breast, chicken wing (both w/o skin), pureed butternut, creamed spinach and steamed vegetables is indeed a binge? I do. But I know that my athlete friends would delcare this "You think a normal regular meal everyone else eats three times daily is a BINGE" as anorexic or ED thinking, they'd say. You agree with me then? This IS a binge? Well it's a place to start.

The main difference between this meal and my own 800 cal/day regimen which also has chicken breast and steamed broccoli are the suspect mystery-preparation pureed butternut and supposedly "lower-fat" (probably higher carb then) creamed spinach. And yet supposedly I should be eating more, and less vegetables, and more fat.

Yes, this is abnormal eating for me (aka binge) to eat this BM meal - but it had how many calories? I don't rightfully know since I didn't prepare it. From taste I suspect sugars added to the butternut and at least corn starch added to the spinach since the taste wasn't "round" enough to be fat from cream.

What's your guess? I'd put this meal on my excel spreadsheet as 1500 which my gut feel is high and my usual being conservative on my calorie counts. I'm usually high when I check the actual websites or packages or CRAN S/W.

So a binge is what exactly? A 800 cal day? A 2000 cal day? Eating your allotted 800 cal/day allotment in one sitting? I'd put my coworker's normal Philly cheesesteak subs (both halves, which is what 9" subs)
with potato chips and two cans of Coke and a pudding for dessert as what now in calories? Say around 1500-2000 cals? Is that a binge? My self-labeled so-called binges where I'll add in an extra can of tuna (150 cals) is way less than any single normal meal of anyone around me. Say I REALLY binge and double my daily intake - eat TWO oranges, eat TWO cans of tuna, and TWO cups of berries - which I never do, that's a binge or the type of "good" eating you're pushing here?

So far I think I'll stick with my 800 cal/day where I know the actual ingredients are. As I usually do. Whole foods with no added fats or carbs.

I wanted to believe that those few splurge 150 cal glasses of wine or lite beers were allowed in the weekly total (after all your 2,000 cal/day weekly total is 14,000 per week) but it appears not. Even if the johnstonefitness guy has red wine on his daily eating list (not just on weekends like me) with tremendous results. If I copy his daily
2K-cal eating regimen exactly, ie - eating way more than I do now - you're absolutely certain I'll look like him (assuming I lift as much as him)? No variations in your "eat 8x your weight" every day? No genetic difference? Endomorphs versus ectomorphs and all that?

I'm about to do that, seriously. Follow the Fit For Life supplements and sample cutting phase and bulking phase diets to see if they work for me, despite my efficient history.

Maybe Ignoramus14193 (your reading of my posts were right BTW) had it correct, that I need to check with resources elsewhere. But where? The local obesity center and my GP doctor was a dead end. The sad thing is this will be yet another dead end on forums.

I just forced myself to have a 4oz fillet of salmon after getting back from a ripping back + bi lifting session. Nutritional package lists this as 133 calories. Not bad for getting such a big nutritional bang for such a small calorie buck. Dally suggests I should NOT trust the nutritional info on the package? Maybe they sneaked more than 4oz into this pre-measured frozen packet? Looks like 4oz by eye but I'll grant you I don't carry a scale around with me. Based on my past checking, I now tend to trust the package labels. At worst they can only be off by so much.

FWIW, I'm not as forum savvy as you guys. It appears that my forum reader delays my ability to see your posts for 3+ hours. Excuse any delays.

Oh yeah, almost forgot about your question - no idea what my morning temps are but last time I checked my morning resting heart rate was somewhere around 32 or 35 bpm. My hands and feet are usually warm, where I'm usually the warmer one in any group (fat insulation I'd guess). The single endocrinologist I saw thought thyroid functioning was lower than normal but not enough to do anything about. What I didn't like is that he didn't think diet could affect metabolism in any way whatsoever. Yet another "no such thing as starvation mode" response. Yet another "Just keep on doing what you're doing." Doctors seem to be the only ones saying this to me.

I know you said before, but hwo tall are you? I thought you are 5'6" or so, taller than me. And 120 is way too low for me, and men are supposed to weigh more than women. So, this sounds like a very unhealthy goal weight.

Are you sure that you are really overweight?

Meghan & the Zoo Crew
Equine and Pet Photography http://www.zoocrewphoto.com

Given the length of this and the other related thread, the time for being subtle in reasoning with the vlcd_hell man is long past. I think that his
"handle", vlcd_hell, should clue him in that he's doing himself wrong.
There's plenty of time for hell after we die!

Can someone explain this to me? My trainer also has me doing my cardio after I lift and I always thought you needed to do some beforehand to warm up. It's not that I disagree since I admit I don't know diddly. I tried observing at the gym and it seems that a few guys will run before lifting and some will do something afterward. I'm just wondering what's best since there are days I do weights and cardio on the same day.

As I said in the original post, sexual interest as well as male competitive aggression did drop off. Felt like a middle aged man turned into grandpa. Very low energy. So far I've avoided any colds though (thanks to my oranges?), whereas at my high of "Snackwells" high-carb obesity I was sick with over a half dozen really serious long-lasting killer colds. I also wonder if the exercise helps keep the body strong to ward off colds. Or maybe I'm just luckier the last two years (don't think so).

Good tip, I already drink green tea iced. I also started taking concentrated green tea capsules I had previously bought to make a green tea ECA stack with. Now skipping the ephedrine part, tea only.
As it is, I still have sleeping problems. Not sure if it's the green tea caffeine yet. Drink about four cups a day, mostly before noon.
Sleeping problems also occur on days I skip the tea. Could be either eating too much (indigestion), or too little (wake up hungry), or the times I have a splurge red wine (alcohol). Other times I wake up thirsty. Other times my body (legs & heart especially) is pumping so furiously from the roller sprints even if done HOURS before, that I'm still so pumped I just can't become calm again. Other times it might be from being a little anxious about work or other minor tasks or hassles. I haven't had much luck narrowing it down yet. On those bad nights, either I never get to sleep or I'll wake up every three hours on cue. Usually it's the latter.

No, it's not anorexia. My peak was 240lbs. My race weight goal is
120lbs. Given how hard losing this remaining weight has been, I might have to settle for 140lbs, as long I get to keep the upper body mass despite its cycling penalty. Also from the original post...

I also don't smell any ammonia. I sometimes detect it in some of the other men at the gym, but have never experienced that myself. I do notice however that I now tend to smell a bit stronger now when at the gym as compared to before - now that I have more (if minor) muscle mass.

My highest flat bench weight is 165lbs for five reps. That weight feels like its about to tear my rotator cuff (as happened to me years ago), so I haven't tried an "one-of" single max lift yet. I suspect you big time lifters will all dump on me for this being a "girly" weight. I'm working on it. However this weight is a lot more than I
EVER lifted as a cyclist (where we were told to keep our lowest rep exercises like bench to never drop below 20 reps). Nowadays I'm doing a pyramid four to five sets of 8-12 reps, sometimes less if I just moved up in weight.

Seems I've been stuck at 165lbs on bench forever. I started with just two reps, now up to five. So right now on flat bench, I do 12 reps at
135lbs, 10-12 reps at 155lbs, 5 reps at 165 lbs, 8 reps at 155lbs, 12 reps at 135lbs, and a burn 12 reps at 115lbs. A good pyramid session, or no?

Keeping calories rigidly consistant is NOT critical. Keeping the daily average close is important, to maintain a certain calorie deficit. I do quite well when I range from 1000-1400 calories per day. I lose, and it doesn't require perfect consistancy. Just like in real life - you can't expect to be right on, exactly, all the time. It's what happens over time that counts.

I have to repeat again. I have almost completely lost my faith in your reports, as they become more and more outlandish. Now you say that you barely lose if you eat 200 calories per day for 4 months.

If you want to restore that faith, start weighing your food and logging all your food into fitday. You can make your fitday page public for us to view. I want to see just what and how much you are eating.

What I suspect is that you have some psychological problems that prevent you from correctly perceiving the amount of calories that you eat. Weighing your food and logging all of it may prevent these problems from distorting your perceptions.

Posting copious amount of verbiage will not make me believe you any more.

Tanita says that it is not for "athletes", which is defines as people who regularly exercise and have heartbeat below 60.

start logging all your foods and post complete logs. I promise to look into them regularly.

You have some major issues. You are not eating enough, you are starving your body. When you don't give your body what it needs to function, it holds fat stores and burns muscle, which in turns slows your metabolism down even further. It seems you may have some emotional problems as well, and you should probably think about getting some professional help to gain perspective on this...

Well, you can lose weight, and quite successfully I might add, and STILL have fun. I mean, you can indulge in steak, ice cream and potato chips, IF you only do it once in awhile and are pretty good and healthy the rest of the time.

It's also the definition of insanity - doing the same things over and over but expecting different results.

85% lean, means that in 100g - there is 85g of lean (protein) and 15g of fat. You are way off. The % is by weight. And, there is 99% fat free ground turkey breast available also.

You need to eat more throughout the day - not just in the 30 minute window.
8-10 cal x lbs of current bodyweight.

Let me repeat. I suspect that you are eating more than 800 calories per day. Unless you start weighing your food and post public log of what you eat (as many people around here do), I will not believe your story.

Again, I suspect that you are not estimating your calories properly.

Right. I meant more that I didn't really know reasons for or against doing some warmup before lifting. As far as doing serious cardio first, that would be the reason not to do it first -- to save energy for the lifting.

Congrats on the 5K run PR! I ran 5K today too, but for me it's a major deal -- not something to do between lifting and volleyball.

And congrats on the free weight squats! I know you were looking forward to starting them.

I appreciate the advice. If I hear the forum consensus correctly, I am being told to "exercise less, eat more" to lose body fat.
Unconventional, but message heard.

You'd think I'd rejoice at this "permission" to "give up" the difficult road of "eating less and exercising more" where I can now eat more and enjoy a more normal quality of life that includes olive oil on my vegetables and even rice carbs and the ability to eat out in social situations albeit wisely.

But it's as hard a message to take as "the world is flat, really." It violates everything I've everything heard about weight loss. Just letting you know where my head it at right now after years of calorie restriction.

To every dieter it seems as if the entire world always tries to get them to always just eat more. Whether friends or family or coworkers or TV ads. "This one cheeseburger won't kill you." You hear this too, right? My trim 4000 cal/day non-exercising coworkers whose daily diet includes greasy cheeseburgers and fries and malt shakes at lunch and steak with potatoes at dinner tell the 3000 cal/day bodybuilders to
"eat more and eat normal - like me. You're starving yourself." The
3000 cal/day bodybuilders whose daily diet includes lots of milk and beef tell the 2000 cal/day runners to "eat more and eat normal - like me. You're starving yourself." The 2000 cal/day runners whose daily diet includes oatmeal carbs tell the NWCR members who lost weight and successfully keep it off by sticking to an average 1200 cal/day to
"eat more and eat normal - like me. You're starving yourself." Even the skinny 20 year-old kid whose entire daily WOE consists of items taken only out of the candy vending machine at work, has the nerve to tell others to "eat more and eat normal - like me. You're starving yourself." And so on down the line.

All this talk about how I "don't believe" all the many conflicting advice snippets that gets thrown everyone's way via friends and media is simplistic. So - which one of these above groups would you believe?
The "all cheeseburger" guys are damn sure of their convictions too, and if one's only measure is to believe and mimic "those who are successful in having the body you don't", it could be any of these folks. Including Mr. Midnight Sundaes or Mr. Candy Machine.

BTW, I think even though my present regimen is lower calorie than average - whether ideal or not - it is a lot healthier than the 'normal' meat-and-bread typical WOE of most Americans, even when they're not eating fast food. I seem to get a LOT more fruit and vegetable servings than the average American diet I happen to see all around me daily(unless you count Pop-Tart fillings and ketchup). The best athlete here "loves pasta but despises fruits and vegetables."

Is there a bell curve to everyone's daily intake requirements? To someone on the lower end of the curve, they will probably forever hear
"Hey, I eat 20 cheeseburgers and it doesn't hurt me. You should eat what I do."

So your message has different intentions and background yet it's the same "eat more - like me" message everyone hears all the time and has spent years trying to make themselves immune to. "Ah come on, join me!
These midnight ice creams sundaes don't hurt me - why would they hurt you? That's psycho to think it'll hurt you, dude, just look at me. I'm fine!"

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T HEAR YOU.

It's just going to take some time for it to sink in. Eating 300 cal x
6 times daily is different than 20 cheeseburgers and different from my current 100-200 cal x 6 daily. It will allow me to add in whey powders despite their higher carbs. Perhaps even "artificial processed-food"
Atkins protein bars like the top-dog guys at the gym. I wonder if my minimal muscle growth is from lack of protein. Whey is not milk either (WAY too many carbs), so this is not as extreme as it sounds right now.

The biggest ah-hah moment came in your "Binge = Intermittently feasting after starving." Makes sense that it might be seen as relative by one's body regardless of calorie counts. I was leaning toward this theory against special occasion splurge meals but didn't think of it so simply and clearly. This summer's experimentation attempts to be normal and lunch with friends where I ate the chicken breast only out of the 'normal' Cajun chicken sandwich platter (skipping bread and fries) but having two beers WOULD look like a binge to my 200-800cal/day body. I think that is what derailed my efforts. No matter what calorie counts I'll end up with, it probably is EXTREMELY critical to keep it always consistent, 24/7 (like an
OCD), where "loosen up and moderate a little" was bad advice.

The basic framework of my 6x WOE is probably sound, no?, if I just add in more cottage cheese and perhaps another fruit and include evening protein powders and bars like the big-gainer lifters at the gym?

Again, eat like them to get their physique because people are mostly the same chemistry? Or people are different where I'd be 900lbs on some of these guys "all cheeseburger" WOE? All the guys are in the caf right now eating their melted cheese and meats bomb subs with potato chips and Cokes and Milano cookies from the machine. In my gut I know that I shouldn't join them (mimic what THEY eat) just because they happen to be trim. You're probably arguing some middle ground. I suppose 2000 cal/day isn't as extreme as their steak bomb subs. Yet given where I'm at it looks almost as extreme to eat double what I do now.

However my current 800cal/day WOE is NOT some quick radical fad I tried on the fly, but something I arrived at after years and years of cutting back (the whole point of those 28 pages was to illustrate that detail). Did dieting train my body to happily run on less? Key word - happily? Could be one theory. (I know you're saying something different here).

I get concerned when I read about how subjects in starvation experiments do eventually re-gain all their lost weight back and their metabolisms are said to "return to normal" yet they remain forever with 140% more body fat than before even when at the before weight.
Add to this studies detailing that if two high school students gain 10 lbs, it's the one who diets to lose the weight that forever has weight problems and higher body fat whereas the non-dieter often sees the weight return to normal soon after and is set for life.

In other words, some data seems to paint the picture that once you've ever dieted, you screwed yourself for life and set up your body mechanics to forever have a higher body fat than your peers. Whether it's from starvation mode mechanics or increased fat cell numbers or countless other possibilities - it's a terrible thought, huh? Where even if you do ever make it back to the physique of your peers, it's going to take a LOT more effort from you to remain like them. "I have to eat less than them" is a natural by-product of this. No?

So the forum rule-of-thumb is - fat people are fat because they eat too little, not too much. The establishment has it wrong. Suppose it wouldn't be the first time...

If you start smelling ammonia, then your body is burning that protein and maybe some of your muscles for energy. (If I understand the theory correctly.)

Some good information here. I wish we would all put our body fat percentages and waist sizes in with the max/current/goal weights too, it would help create a total picture for what posters have achieved via their physique changing efforts. Here I am fat at 175lbs and was stunned today when a lifter said he weighed 210lbs. Not an ounce of fat.

To begin... I am still looking around for information or plans for how one successfully gets off VLCD consumption levels without triggering a huge fat storage response during the increase period. My own data during my previous four attempts at this had me gain 10lb in two weeks four times in a row before I got disgusted enough to can the experiment. No real luck so far. I did see one source mention only adding back 200 calories per week to prevent fat storage. Would love to see some real studies on this. Any pointers would be appreciated.

So much of what I'm reading currently centers on the fact that you apparently have to fool your system, as if it's really NOT as fine-tuned as I feel mine is. That if you only cut X calories it won't notice and defend the fat stores, if you over-eat by X calories your body won't notice and use it for storage, etc.

In my search I found other data points which seem to agree with my situation, where other dieters have been reported to live off 700 cal/day...

"In fact, if we are habitually on diets, our metabolism will be chronically slow. Some habitual dieters require only 700 calories per day to maintain their present body composition!"

I also found a few of the original quotes I had used two years ago to help me dig even deeper into refining my VCLD WOE to reach it's present level which seems to scare everyone. Quotes such as :

"Some people have inherited a body type that tends to favor fat storage. These people are called "endomorphs." Endomorphs may have a slower metabolism, they are often carbohydrate sensitive, they gain fat quickly if they eat poorly, they gain fat quickly if they don't exercise, and they may retain stubborn fat, even on a healthy, low fat diet. Weight loss is easier for some than for others and that doesn't seem fair. But that's the way life is. Life isn't fair. This simply means that you're going to have to adjust your diet and training to fit your body type and metabolism. You may have to work harder than other people. You may have to be more persistent than other people.
You might need a stricter diet than other people. You might need to train harder than other people. You might have less margin for error (fewer cheat days)."

Is my story really so rare? It's really that hard for others to adapt to eating less like this as I have? Wouldn't everyone do as above, keep cutting out one calorie-laden food after another until your body fat drops?

I USED to feel that so much of nutritional information seemed to have this patronizing cynical air to it like "I know the average person won't ever give up rice altogether, even though it's better for them to, so we'll just tell them to eat brown rice instead since it's half-way there." Or "we can't trust people not to binge gorge themselves if calories are lower than they're used to, so we'll just tell them to eat 500 calories less, even though lower works faster, since we know those fatties are too weak willed to resist stuffing their face with Oreos after eating low calorie all day." Perhaps these media-driven golden rules are more about fooling the system than a cynical sticking close to "what people are used to"?

And Lance at 4% BF is one of the larger heavier cyclists on the circuit. Pure climbers are much lighter than he is. I had 3% BF myself in the six years I was racing as well. Seems like a different lifetime ago though. Can you appreciate how 50 extra lbs slows you going up a hill? "Here Lance, carry these five ten-pound sacks of potatoes with you up that L'Alp d'Heuz climb." When cyclists are known to pay $1,000 on a higher tech component that saves one gram. Even more ludicrous that I do too, despite all the excess BF baggage.

Weight: 240lb max, 175lb current, 120-140lb goal
Waist: 40+" max, 34" current, 28-30" goal
BF%: 33% max, 26% current, 3-9% goal (3% cycling/ 9% triathlete)
LBS of fat: 80lbs max, 46lbs current, 4-14lb goal

Darn Google doesn't even show my earlier post from before lunch.
Replying here...

Alright, back from the gym. Sorry for the vent of frustration this morning, sometimes it's hard to push through these plateau walls.
Luckily a good workout at the gym restores hope. I'm really sore and fatigued and hopeful that this turkey breast meat I'm eating is going directly to my exhausted back and bicep muscles (rather than my fat stores).

As for public food. Already addressed this in my OP. I eat the same foods every day, listed there. Suppose it's a valid question for you to ask if I know my portion control and calorie counts. But it's really not very hard now is it - most people I talk to (from CRAN to dieters to gym rats) get a sense after a while for how many calories exist in a given portion size of a given food. As for psychological issues. I'm not using eating as an anorexic girl or rape victim would, as a control issue. It's simply as a means to get back to my old 3% body fat state (or as close to it as I can). The only psychological issue I can imagine is that this effort is being 'selfish' of me to have to the goal of trying to get more healthy by removing this ring of fat around my middle and trying to become a competitive cyclist once again (from the heavy slow 55lb-overweight tub of a thing I presently am). I know it's a minor problem compared to what other's face, but it's how I decided to spend my free time. The joy of lightweight riding is wonderful.

What's amazing is just how much you can eat of very satiating foods as long as you avoid the calorie-dense trap foods. After years of low-fat and now a year of also low-carb, it is fantastically amazing how SWEET and delicious a simple Clementine orange is! That was my Super Bowl treat. At half-time I also allowed myself a bowl of mixed frozen berries (wild Maine blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and dark
German cherries). Yum! How many calories was that 'splurge'? And how highly packed with incredible nutrition. Compared to everyone else's 'normal' Super Bowl party foods of cheesecake and potato chips and cream dips and nachos and caramel popcorn and pepperoni platters (just going by what people brought to the work caf counters to give away the next day). How incredibly packed with evil hidden calories and how devoid of anything worthwhile nutritionally. And yet I'm the one accused of not eating healthy.

I tend to eat the same foods. Day in and day out for me this month is a breakfast California orange, 8-10 counted almonds, half a cup of cottage cheese, a can of tuna, perhaps a Clementine splurge mid-afternoon, and I should do my frozen veggies but often feel so satiated from all this protein than I haven't, to be honest, even though I'm missing those phytochemicals. If I have a hunger pang at night I'll have a counted 4-6 salt-craving olives (which always does the trick). And lots and lots of water (rollers are good for making me thirsty as well as not hungry). Where is there room here for such a great calorie deviation?

Do you really feel there is 3K of calories here? Sure, if you eat the standard 'normal' American calorie-dense trap foods I see everyone else eating like pasta, bread, dried fruits, milk, cereals, granola bars, cheeses, sauces, vending machine junk foods, pastries, sodas, potato chips, rice, fries, oatmeal, cycling power bars, bagels with cream cheese, hamburgers, pizza, (etc, etc), then one can easily over-consume without even knowing it.

It very hard to do this while on a WOE of calorie-light unprocessed whole foods. Nuts being the only culprit there. It gets even harder when you opt for the lower-carb and lower-fat of any two options (fiber-packed berries vs. bananas, spinach vs. corn). Do you have any idea how MUCH 3,000 calories of pure low-carb low-fat vegetables represents? Your jaw would start hurting from chewing that much.

Let's hope this turkey breast (in lieu of tuna) works its magic. I'll be doing roller sprints tonight in case not, trying to take it back out of my fat stores. I stepped up roller efforts to every weeknight now as cycling season approaches.

I yet again blew another ski house hot tub season, yet again having to hang my head in shame. Now even beach season looks in jeopardy. Two more months before the first races! And still stuck on this darn plateau! The pull of the annual cycling ritual of "eat less, exercise more" to drop winter weight is getting ever stronger. Trying to have patience with the current regimen. Other bodybuilders at the gym say to stay the course. Sigh. Looks like I'm going to put up another month to be at risk. Fingers crossed. There's a little muscle growth traction going on. Perhaps I'll have to put up with high fat stores until racing season starts in order to gain the muscle mass, where I can count on many hours in the saddle to drop the fat layer come spring.

Feel like Ignoramous is going to come back with "Beware the 1,000 calorie orange" since that must be what's happening here.

Excuse me - you are correct. I should have said that there is an optimal and healthy calorie range for *fat* loss. I know you like to split hairs - so sorry that I didn't get it just right. I did say that at that level his body would be burning muscle and storing fat. What I'm getting at is there is a healthy way to lose weight - to maximize fat loss and maintain good health - and he's not in that range by any stretch of the imagination. If he IS eating 800 calories per day, he is starving himself.

Starvation mode or not, 800 calories is too low for maintaining his weight at the given level of exercise.

I think that he is eating more than 800 calories per day and simply is unable to properly perceive how much he is eating. To substantiate his claims, he needs to start weighing and logging all his foods publicly.

OK, after ten minutes of reading, I have one piece of advice for you: LET GO.
You are *way* too torqued about this issue. It's become detrimental to your psychological health. It's possible you have some kind of metabolic disorder, but I think your main problem is psychological. Seriously. Seek help. M9

I agree with your other points in the post (the harder part is actually doing it).

Yes, 4k is not 2K. But to someone contentedly eating 2K every day, eating double that to 4K would seem like a feast (ie, to you).
Likewise, for someone formerly eating 200 cal/day and who was trying to get himself all the way up to eating 800 cal/day most days (now even more from you guys), eating 2K cal/day is likewise double, and likewise seems like a feast (ie, to me). Not that I'd eat this, but my god that's the equivalent of a McD Big Mac super-sized meal for crying out loud! Compared to an orange. FEAST indeed!

I wonder how much time you've spent around most normal athletic men in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties? Going out for lunch happens every day, often yes, even Chinese buffets multiple days per week (the choice is which of the three around them to go to). Then as I eat my lunch vegetables, they'll one by one individually confide in me (where it's not public bravado rubbing it in), "You're gonna hate hearing this, but I feel I ought to tell you that after this cheese steak sub
I'll go home tonight and typically eat London broil steaks and mashed potatoes and drink lots of milk and even follow that with a big bowl of ice cream. And I only lift 20 minutes twice a week. You're body is just so different from mine. I'd die on what you're eating!"

Everyone is different, and I'm not whining about not being able to 'feast' like them. (London broil would probably make me sick to my stomach for days anyway, compromising several day's worth of runs).
But obese people (some, at least) are different from most others. We can call those guys "pre-fat" in our own warped way of looking at the world to make us feel better, but no, to them their bodies raise their core temperature and so forth so that this is a normal healthy way of eating for them. And it shows in their better physiques than mine.

That's the issue I have with "eating like them to look like them." To do so I would be (from obese eyes) 'feasting' like themevery day, even if I just ate the same lunch as them. I USED to think that they have better physiques than me because behind the scenes they're secretly lifting even harder than me and secretly running even further than me and secretly fasting even more than me (to make up for all those public calories).

On the flip side, if I ate as little as my grandmother contentedly does, you guys would be screaming about starvation.

Every body seems different. Every body seems to have different calorie requirements.

So the big question in my mind is - which comes first, the diet makes the body, or the body makes the diet? More protein makes a muscular body, or a muscular body needs more protein?

Eating more than my body seems content to run on is difficult. But I can overcome that like I overcame the initial hardships (acid stomach, etc) of my now-normal-for-me VLCD. Eating 2K cal/day feels like gorging, like a slothful "taking more than you actually need" behavior. My system clearly wasn't happy on 200 cal/day (acute dizziness, etc) but seemed much happier and content on 800 cal/day over such a long period. Now the mission is to seemingly get my body regulated and contented on eating even more than 800 cal/day.

The premise you guys pose is that by eating more than I 'need', I will
I create a more muscular lean body that in turn can eat even more (aka a 2K 'feast' to my current eyes) calories every day of the week.

I agree with Chrys,

It's very possible that they are weight loss resistant. Dr. Phil's book 7 keys to weight loss covers this near the end of the book and makes recommendations on what to have checked in blood tests, and mentions minerals and supplements to take to help you depending on whether your a apple or pear shape person.

It was a pretty lengthy note too...lol..I couldn't get myself to read it all.

(major snippage)

That's like the question which came first the chicken or the egg? You have to have protein to make a muscular body and a muscular body must have protein to maintain itself and more protein to get more muscular.

Have you ever seen 35-45 year old ex-football players? Some of them continued to eat like they did when they were playing and have the fat to show for it. Very few people do not have a metabolism slow down as they age. Some people may instinctively compensate for it by cutting back on their consumption and upping their exercise. But most of us, I think, become
FFID until it becomes burdensome.

I really believe that you need a therapist for your head and a doctor (maybe one specializing in sports medicine) for your body. You admit yourself that you're putting yourself through hell. Eating only 800 calories a day will kill you and 200 a day will kill you faster. But at this point you should put yourself under professional care because the strain on your body if you all of a sudden start consuming massive amounts of food could be devasting.

Cool! Finally something explains my lack of progress. I am indeed already seeing some minor gains in these first two weeks of the new split routine. I chalked it up to a variation in my set "day in & day out" routine for 9 months, but perhaps it is really because the muscles are getting worked more often.

My routine was in my original post...

The tendon pain went away in the week I took off from lifting while skiing abroad but it's come back again, though only in my left arm so far. It feels like it's from gripping the dumb bell handles, but doing the preacher curl and overhead tris with the EZ bar hurts most of all.
I replaced those both with Nautilus bicep and tricep for now. Another variation I'm hoping helps.

The Tri & Bi day has the least amount of exercises of the week and was my fastest day in the gym (good on the days I led spin classes).
Though for some reason those bi/tri exercises took longer than usual (like tricep kickbacks one arm at a time), so I made it out in about
90 minutes if rushing.

I find that I am needing to make some adjustments in my new split routine. Now that chest and shoulder are on the same day, for example,
I find that after the chest exercises that the dumb bell military press is very difficult and I've had to lower the weight. To such a degree that so far I could not follow the dumb bell mil press with the
Barbell military press - just no ability to lift it - the muscles are completely exhausted. So for now I'm going with that change too.

As for food, also from my post...

I am trying to add in more cottage cheese next time I'm at the store.

I sometimes allow myself a 200cal whey protein drink at night now given everyone screaming for me to eat more. I'll sometimes switch and do my evening lift during lunch, skip the run, but then bike longer at night. When I do that, I feel more comfortable that I can safely eat more protein post-lifting when it's mid-afternoon, since I don't have to fear its being stored as fat. Otherwise I have a very hard time eating the recommended post-lift protein when it comes so late at night. Unfortunately this time of year it's too cold to run at any time other than lunch time. Catch-22. My firm gut feel is that the key element which worked for me in dropping the previous 70lbs was the "no eating past 3PM" rule. Eating calories late at night, often 9PM, coming after the evening lifting, drive home, cycling rollers in cellar, then shower, feels downright slothful since I'm only going to bed shortly. I'm WAY past that magic half-hour window post-lifting where MAYBE the calories might go to muscle mass rather right into the fat stores. Eating 4 hours past the start of lifting and at 9PM seems reckless.

What else is an easy way to get protein during the day? Anything healthy and easy I can eat at my work desk? Cold cut meats like deli turkey breast and ham and jerky aren't good long-term solutions because of the nitrates. I probably should only eat tuna cans three times a week (mercury), same for salmon (PC, chicken is good all the time but these are usually only during microwaved lunch. I can sneak in a few spoonfuls of low-carb low-fat high-protein cottage cheese pretty easily. Any other protein tips?

I presently don't believe I have to pair up my foods. Dally suggested a protein WITH some rice and some fats. What's wrong with having almonds as one of your six snack meals, tuna as another, and orange as another, each by themselves? Last night, in re-reading Bill Philips
Supplement book (now that I no longer feel I have what I prior thought was my superior dime-store knowledge of nutrition dropping so much weight), he also mentions (albeit in passing) that you should eat protein and carbs TOGETHER at every one of your six meals. He says this is critical but doesn't say why. Yet carbs also cause tremendous insulin release which causes calories to be stored as fat. Which is it? What's the caveat here?

I have barely accepted the carbs in the orange and berries, justifying it as a big antioxidant and phytochemicals bang for a tiny carb buck.
Brown rice and oatmeal and other runner/cyclist extremely high-carb foods would have no benefit, I previously thought. I'm not carbo-loading for races anymore like we used to. Once I'm back down to
3% body fat again, I'll perhaps even start to THINK about putting so many useless candy carbs back into my body again, perhaps before races with the excuse of "it's for sprints", but to do so now would be counter-productive empty calories. No?

Right now I DO buy the "Dude, eat more protein" argument. As long as it's low-fat. And low-carb. I even went out after last night's lift and bought several pounds of the store's own turkey breast (less nitrates), and I even <gulp> ate a bunch of it when I got home. Might have slowed my fat loss but it also felt good feeding that "need protein now" feeing I'm starting to get after heavy lifting sessions more and more now. Or is it just forming a bad habit? It's easy to give yourself a sugar addiction where at 10AM you SWEAR you really need that sugary carby low-fat granola bar as I had in my 240lb days.
You get the sense that your body is extremely good at adapting to whatever you do, but REALLY likes to repeat the same ritual habits.
The fear is that I'm replacing my old sugar/carb addiction from obese day with a late night protien addiction now (to replace what you guys seem to consider a low-calorie addiction).

I start today feeling incredibly frustrated. It's now been four weeks on my new split lifting routine, two weeks of forcing treadmill and roller SPRINTS which hits max heart rate, concerted efforts to eat more protein calories, and still - NOTHING! Very minimal muscle gain positive, which is totally offset and swamped by increased fat storage negative (by looks). Net result: no traction toward looking cut. A whole month lost, all of January. I'm still stuck at this damn 176 lbs and 26% BF couch potato physique. This rest and moderation crap isn't working. Besides, literature says to drop fat via dropped calories and get cut first, then add calories and muscle later, otherwise you'll end up with what I have now - perhaps some unseen muscles but hidden underneath sheets of fat. What is it I'm pinning my hopes on here to continue the current "eat more, exercise less" regimen?

Composing myself to respond...

Seems the Google posting S/W didn't respect my carriage returns.
Here's the chart over my scale for my own 5'8" height in non-chart form...
= BMI : between 18.5 &amp; 24.9 = BF%: between 3% &amp; 15% = LBS: between 120 &amp; 165 = BMI : between 25.0 &amp; 29.9 = BF%: between 15% &amp; 25% = LBS: between 165 &amp; 198 = BMI : over 30.0 = BF%: over 25% = LBS: over 198

Tanita BIA scale (it reads 24%-26%). Where I have so MUCH fat, are calipers even needed? I mean, like I need to know down to the decimal point? I can pinch three inches around my stomach and a good 1.5 inches on my back in the ring of fat that goes around (lovely). FWIW, when I looked at calipers in the store, three inches did come out to be around my Tanita BF%, if memory serves.

You know, there's a reason my original post was long. I tried to put all the pertinent info in there. Read it to get the answers to your questions. To short-hand it for you - 120lb cyclist, years of cutting back calories perhaps creating an efficient metabolism, to where I became 240lb obese on one low-fat dinner meal per day, decided for a
100% dedicated VLCD effort, one lunch meal of 200 cal/day of one container of frozen microwaved vegetables (200cal allowed 3 one-pound boxes of spinach but often satiated on just one box that sitting), felt if I was "truly" starving hungry I'd impulsively crave more spinach, found it amazingly easy to fast even despite the cycling workouts, and used five hours of gym exercise at night as an appetite suppressant. Only lost 1lb/wk which is number of calories I worked off, seemingly saying my basal metabolism is zero (can't be true, perhaps the "calories per ten minutes of exercise" values were off), but never lost the expected 2K-3K of basal metabolism calories per day, nor the published 3-5lb/wk loss all other VLCD dieters lost in the studies. It's all in there in my post. I don't understand it myself. Seems impossible. And yet it continues now. Everyone is so alarmed that my current 800 cal/day is not enough to cover my basal metabolism, never mind to cover all the exercise I perform each day.
And yet here I remain with 26% body fat, flat line for an entire year.

This doesn't scream that my body is getting too many calories in the linear "calorie is a calorie" world? Where being 55lbs over weight means I have 55 x 3500 = 193,000 calories of food presently hanging off my body in stored body fat. Even if I have a 2,000 cal/day basal metabolism (my data says closer to 600 cal/day) - this means I don't have to eat a single item for 96 days before reaching my ideal weight!
In a calorie is a calorie world, right?

If my basal metabolism REALLY was 2,000 cal/day - how could I be on this plateau despite the 800 cal/day calorie restriction for a whole year? It doesn't add up. I only lost weight on this admittedly wacky
200 cal/day VLCD plan, where I didn't enjoy having to worry about my heart muscle (even though I had ample body fat for the body to dip into for calories instead).

I don't fail at things I put my mind to. And yet this experience has left me feeling like a failed anorexic. I should look like Marco
Pantani or Tyler Hamilton cyclists (aka male Carlista Flockharts of the athlete world) by now. How can this plateau freaking be?

Time to work off my extreme frustration in the gym... again... thank god for that outlet at least.

240 / 120 / 175

It is a major deal when you work your way up to being able to do 5K. If you were here I'd give you a big ol' high five!